Since I found the forums on this website so helpful when looking for my undergraduate home, I thought I might find some helpful advice for graduate school here as well.
I graduated from a top 30 university in May of 2015 as an English/History double major. A year out from college, I have made the decision that I would like to return to grad school, to obtain an MA in Art History (terminal). This is, obviously, quite a departure from my undergrad studies. I was hoping to get some insight from people on how relatively difficult it can be to attend a grad school for something you didn’t major in, or if anyone has any experience in a situation like this. Anything helps!
Thanks so much!
I imagine this happens all the time.
I an undergrad economics major, but know at least a couple individuals who went “completely different directions for grad school” than their undergrad. One individual is one of my department professors. This individual majored in French Literature in undergrad, then went on to a PhD in Economics. The second individual I know about was a Master’s student in the econ department when I met this individual, but this person majored in English in undergrad - and eventually also went on to PhD in Economics as well. And this department is small compared to some others at my university! I imagine there’s a lot more of this kind of thing going on.
It does happen, but there are some caveats for it:
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For professional schools - like public policy, public administration, business, etc. - it usually doesn’t matter what you majored in in undergrad. Those programs are designed for people from any major.
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For academic programs - like art history, English literature, political science, math - it is sometimes possible for people to make the switch if they majored in a very closely related field. For example, someone who majored in math would be able to get an MA in statistics after college, or someone who majored in sociology might be able to get into an MA program in political science in certain departments. That’s going to vary by department, though. And the more competitive programs probably get more qualified applicants with a major in the MA field than they can admit, so at those programs you’re probably less likely to be admitted without a major unless the rest of your package is truly outstanding.
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There are some academic programs these days that are designed for people with minimal preparation in the field. For example, there are lots of MA programs in statistics that only require three semesters of calculus and a semester of linear algebra, plus maybe 1-2 semesters of prob and stats. That’s partially because of the nature of these programs (many graduate-level statistics classes are just expanded and faster-paced versions of their undergraduate counterparts) and partially because of demand in these fields (there’s a huge need for statisticians and a lot of people want to make the switch to that career field).
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For the majority of academic programs, though, you’d need to have at least some coursework in the field (like the equivalent of a minor at the very least) to be admitted. That’s because most disciplinary graduate programs are intended to build upon a foundation of undergraduate knowledge. For example, in psychology, graduate-level classes expect you to have a basic knowledge of psychological experimental design, the history and development of the field, a smidgen of biological knowledge of parts of the brain and how the brain and body function together, some basic concepts across different subfields of psychology, and a little depth into a specific subfield. There will be concepts thrown around like “fundamental attribution error” and “stages of psychosocial development” and references made to major contributors to the field (Bandura, Wundt, Skinner). A psychology graduate student would be expected to know these things as a reference point and be able to add to and expand that knowledge; a student who didn’t have familiarity with these things (and be able to immediately pull them up mentally) would be at a huge disadvantage in classwork. It’s kind of like how in order to learn calculus you need to know basic algebra first, because you can’t differentiate if you don’t know algebra.
It’s probably the same in art history - there would be major historical events in art you’d be expected to know, major figures in the art world who have contributed to both art as a field and the study of history of art as a field who you’d be expected to be familiar with, and major theories and scholarly techniques in art history that you’d need to have a mental model for. Some of that you may have gotten from your history major (I’d imagine that at least some methods - like historiography - would be similar) but much of it you wouldn’t.
Sooo you might be able to find some MA programs in category #3 from above, but my guess is that to make yourself competitive you’d need to take some foundational coursework (at least 5-7 classes) in art history before you apply.